Friday, February 17, 2006

March of the Penguins

Sometimes I like reading or watching movies just to learn more. Yes, I know that's why I became a teacher. So yesterday I watched March of the Penguins because I really don't know much about those birds. It was a pretty good movie - a little slow at the beginning, but overall very interesting. This coming from a girl who happily watches documentaries about String Theory.

But man, those birds are intelligent! They seem to show emotion, too. When the egg or chick died, they looked genuinely remorseful. Even their calls seemed to express grief.

Although, later I began to wonder if Warner digitally enhanced or altered the expressions of the penguins when they dealt with loss. There was a segment when this predator duck-like bird flew in and attacked the chicks. At first, it sounded like an eagle when it was flying, but then it landed and stumbled and began quacking like a duck. I don't think that it actually made the eagle sounds because it didn't open its mouth while flying. That makes me wonder how much I can trust the movie overall. Did they really document the events as they happened, or are they enhanced for the movie? I wish I knew what kind of predator the duck thing was. Maybe I'll have to learn more.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I was thinking the exact same thing. If you watch the making of documentary, go to about 22 minutes in. There is a scene of them in the camp and if you watch closely in the background, there is what looks like a man in a penguin costume (without the head) leaning against a building smoking a cigarette. It’s only there for a second so you may have to use the slow motion on your remote if you have it.